Gary Brown: Alternatives to the half-full, half-empty’ question

There are other answers to the query, “Is the glass half empty or half full?”

Gary Brown

How you answer a question — “Is the glass half empty or half full?” — always has been the indicator of whether you are a pessimist or optimist.

It occurs to me that there are other answers to the query.

It doesn’t matter, I just want to know if the glass is clean.
It isn’t my glass. It’s got lipstick on it.
If you put a lemon slice in there and a straw, it’ll be a little more than half-full.
Sorry, I only use bottled water.
Either way, if you’re charging for this water, I’m going demand a 50-percent discount.
Hey, are you un-American? Look at the bottom of it. This glass was made in China.
I go to good restaurants, where the waitresses don’t let the water glasses get down below three-quarters filled.
Yuck! Stuff is floating in this water!
You got a government grant to ask this kind of question, didn’t you?
I don’t want to get too philosophical or artsy on you, but when I look at that glass it reminds me of unfulfilled goals and unrequited love, but at the same time symbolizes our thirst for all the refreshing surprises that the future holds in store for us. It’s really a dualistic glass of water that is neither full nor empty. Rather it’s two distinct halves, existing together in a symbiotic relationship. I’d call it “Life.”
Personally, I think you’re just using too big of a glass.
When it gets down this far, I don’t drink it because I just figure the cats have been lapping at it.
At this rate I’m going to dehydrate. They say you should drink eight glasses of water a day. I don’t have times to drink 16 times.
Got any of that lemonade powder that we can use to spice it up a little?
If that water has been sitting out getting stale for very long, I’d throw it onto the geranium.
I’m not going to get the job if I guess wrong, am I?
Oops, knocked it over! My bad. Need napkins over here!
Did you know that “a mere 2 percent drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on a computer screen or on a printed page?” I read that at www.naturodoc.com.
I don’t care either way, but don’t leave it sitting out like that or it’ll breed mosquitoes.
Pee-ew! It smells like it’s got sulfur or something dead in it. I don’t know why anybody was drinking half of it in the first place.
I think there are people out there who are putting mind-numbing substances into our water supply that will enable them to keep the population in a drugged and controllable state. Got a box to check for that on your fascist survey form?
Half full. No, maybe it’s half empty. Wait, I think I was right the first time, it’s half full, except it looks half empty, I mean the part that’s not half full ...
Well, eh, um ... you know, it’s this kind of public pressure that made me start getting my water only out of drinking fountains.
Oh, my mistake, I didn’t understand the question, so I filled the glass back up. I can drink half of it real fast if you want to wait and ask again ...
Does it bother you that, with everything that is going on in this world right now, how we look at a glass of water is a major concern?